This invention relates generally to the field of Internet Web display systems, and more particularly to a process for protecting sensitive price information from Internet based data collection systems.
Web based systems currently use text, images, and control tags to display information. Typical e-commerce systems such as electronic catalogs contain pictures of products, and text with catalog part numbers and pricing. Since a company""s entire product line can usually be accessed via these electronic Web based e-commerce catalogs, the company is putting their entire pricing structure at risk to competitive analysis. One or two products priced out on the Web is not critical, but when a large number of a company""s products are priced out in one system, a competitor can electronically mine the data from that system for competitive pricing information.
This process patent attempts to address this and similar issues, by making it more difficult for competitors to electronically gather the sensitive information while still providing the information to customers and others.
The primary object of the invention is to allow customers to readily access product/service price information while preventing rival companies from electronically gathering said information for competitive purposes. Another object of the invention is to be transparent to end users. Another object of the invention is to have minimal performance impact. A further object of the invention is to reduce threats from competition. Yet another object of the invention is to reduce the chances of price wars. Still yet another object of the invention is to prevent electronic price comparison. Another object of the invention is that it should primarily be used in e-commerce systems where lists of product prices concentrate pricing information in one location, making it a likely target for competitive price gathering.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following descriptions, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein, by way of illustration and example, an embodiment of the present invention is disclosed.
A process for protecting sensitive price information from Internet based data collection systems comprising the steps of: (1) analyzing specific price information and breaking each price down into a sequence of numbers, instead of representing the pricing numbers as a string of text characters on a Web page (in a specific font, etc.), represent them as a sequence of image files, (2) set up the image files to represent each digit of the price, and (3) display the image files sequentially to reflect a continuous pattern of numbers reflecting the actual price.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments to the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. It is to be understood that in some instances various aspects of the invention may be shown exaggerated or enlarged to facilitate an understanding of the invention.